April 24, 2021 - The Michigan Star

‘George Floyd Square’ Singles Out White People with Special Instructions for Behavior

April 24, 2021April 23, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

The intersection where George Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose, which has since been converted into an informal memorial, has signs posted with special instructions for how White people are supposed to behave in the area, according to Fox News.

Having since been unofficially renamed “George Floyd Square,” the intersection of E. 38th Street and Chicago Avenue has become the epicenter for Black Lives Matter and other far-left protests, with numerous memorials built to Floyd and other black people who have allegedly been murdered by police. At one of the entrances to the area, a sign has been erected declaring it to be “a sacred space for community, public grief, and protest.” The sign also falsely claims that Floyd “took his last breath under the knee of” Officer Derek Chauvin, even though footage revealed that Chauvin’s knee was actually on Floyd’s back and shoulder blade, not his neck.

Further down, the sign contains special instructions for how White people are to act upon entering the area. White people, the sign says, are to “decenter” and “come to listen, learn, mourn, and witness. Remember you are here to support, not be supported.” The sign goes on to order White people to “contribute to the energy of the space, rather than drain it,” providing no specifics on how exactly this is supposed to be done.

Commentary: Chauvin Verdict Disappointed Democrats

April 24, 2021April 23, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

Tuesday afternoon the Democrats and the Left at large got exactly what they said they wanted from the trial of Derek Chauvin. The jury found him guilty of all three counts — second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter — with which he had been charged in the death of George Floyd. Yet prominent Democrats who commented on the verdict seemed slightly bewildered and disappointed. Their collective response was captured in this statement from Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison: “I would not call today’s verdict justice, because justice implies restoration.” This is an odd assertion coming from the man who orchestrated Chauvin’s prosecution and secured an unequivocal conviction.

It is particularly odd considering that the city of Minneapolis agreed in March to pay $27 million to settle a civil suit brought by George Floyd’s family pursuant to his death. Neither that settlement nor Chauvin’s conviction will restore George Floyd’s life, of course, but it is all one can reasonably expect from the legal system. That, unfortunately, is the rub. When Ellison deploys words like “justice” and “restoration,” he isn’t talking about what most Americans think of when they hear such terms. He is claiming they are meaningless in a structurally racist legal system that is itself the root cause of tragedies like George Floyd’s death. This is what renowned legal scholar Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) means by this obloquy:

I don’t want this moment to be framed as this system working. Because it’s not working. We saw a murder in front of all of our eyes, and yet we didn’t know if there would be a guilty verdict — it tells you everything. Verdicts are not substitutes for policy change…. and there are way too many people including my colleagues that think that’s the case…. This one case and this one verdict, we still have people getting killed by police every single day on average in the United States…. We’re willing to accept violence against some communities as a necessary cost for “safety.”

Twitter Refuses to Address Whether Lebron James Tweet Violated Terms of Service

April 24, 2021April 23, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

Twitter is refusing to address whether a tweet by Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James violated the platform’s terms of service.

James tweeted, then deleted, a picture Wednesday of Ohio police officer Nicholas Reardon who shot 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant as she attempted to stab another girl, body cam footage showed.

“YOU’RE NEXT,” James tweeted to his millions of followers with the hashtag #ACCOUNTABILITY. He has since deleted the tweet.

Election Integrity Bill Fails in Arizona Senate After One Republican Betrays Party

April 24, 2021April 23, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

Abill that was set to strengthen election integrity in Arizona by cracking down on voter fraud failed in the Republican-led State Senate, after a Republican member went against the party and voted it down, as reported by ABC News.

The bill, SB 1485, would have made it easier to remove inactive names from the state’s early voting list by removing the word “permanent” from the state’s definition of said list. Following this change, anyone on the list who did not vote in the state’s elections after a certain period of time could have their names removed completely. Inactive names remaining on a state’s voting rolls, such as in Arizona, can lead to a greater chance of voter fraud when those names are used to sway an election in a crucial swing state.

But a single Republican state senator, Kelly Townsend (R-Ariz.), voted with the Democrats against the bill. Her reasoning, ostensibly, was to wait for the results of a GOP-led audit of all 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County from the 2020 election.

Retired General Picked by Nancy Pelosi to Review Capitol Security Appears on Chinese Propaganda Network

April 24, 2021April 23, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

Chinese government officials and state-controlled media agencies have recently ramped up their rhetoric against the United States on the issue of climate change, portraying the U.S. as not doing enough to limit greenhouse emissions even though China is by far the world’s biggest polluter.

One shot fired in the propaganda war came this week in the form of an interview that CGTN America, the U.S. affiliate of the Beijing-controlled China Central Television (CCTV), conducted with retired Army Lt. General Russel Honoré.

Honoré, who is founder of the environmental group Green Army, decried in the CGTN interview that a “large part” of the population in his native Louisiana denies the existence of climate change.

Commentary: The Teacher Pay Gap Is Really About the STEM Salary Premium

April 24, 2021April 23, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

With classrooms finally reopening and hundreds of billions of federal dollars earmarked for public schools, the issue of teacher pay will soon re-emerge. Before the pandemic, public school teachers were fighting against a widely perceived “teacher salary penalty.” President Biden vowed to “correct this wrong,” promising a dramatic increase in federal education funding to “give teachers a raise.” But what causes these pay differences? New Census Bureau data suggest that most teachers are paid roughly what they’d receive in other jobs. But if public schools wish to attract the best-qualified graduates to teaching, they need to stop paying the physics teacher the same as the gym teacher.

The Economic Policy Institute, a teacher-union-affiliated think tank, reports that public school teachers receive salaries about 20 percent lower than non-teachers with equal levels of experience and education.

But what does it mean for education to be “equal”? College graduates attended different institutions, majored in different fields, and received different GPAs, leading to different salaries later in life. That’s why parents encourage their children to attend more competitive colleges and, increasingly, to favor STEM fields over liberal arts majors.

Steve Bannon Presents ‘War Room: Pandemic’

April 24, 2021April 23, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

An all new LIVE STREAM of War Room: Pandemic starts at 9 a.m. Central Time on Saturday.

Former White House Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon began the daily War Room: Pandemic radio show and podcast on January 25, when news of the virus was just beginning to leak out of China around the Lunar New Year. Bannon and co-hosts bring listeners exclusive analysis and breaking updates from top medical, public health, economic, national security, supply chain and geopolitical experts weekdays from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon ET.

Senate GOP Counters Biden with $568 Billion Infrastructure Plan

April 24, 2021April 23, 2021 The Center Square

A group of Republican U.S. senators have unveiled a $568 billion plan that would look to rebuild and expand infrastructure nationwide and counter a more expensive proposal by President Joe Biden.

The GOP plan includes $299 billion for roads and bridges, $61 billion for public transit systems and $65 billion for broadband infrastructure. Also included in the plan is $20 billion for rail, $35 billion for drinking water and wastewater, $13 billion for safety, $17 billion in ports and inland waterways, $44 billion for airports and $14 billion for water storage.

Emphasized in the bill is the expediting of projects through regulatory processes and several measures to minimize new spending. The plan calls for repurposing federal COVID-19 relief funds that have remained unused, along with ensuring the federal debt is not increased.

Michigan Gov. Whitmer Vows to Run State-Owned Facilities 100 Percent on Renewable Energy by 2025; Critics Describe as ‘Accounting Gimmick’

April 24, 2021April 23, 2021 The Center Square

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced the state will increase state-owned facility renewable energy by 85% by 2025, up from the current 15%, but didn’t explain how.

The governor announced the goal on April 22 to coincide with Earth Day.

Whitmer cited a partnership between the state and energy providers DTE, Consumers Energy, and Lansing Board of Water and Light. Energy purchased from the utilities will expand those companies’ renewable energy portfolio in Michigan.